Scholarship From A Critical Perspective

10.1163/ej.9789004179486.i-252.12

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Chapter Summary

Mainstream sociology currently takes for granted two very central concerns rooted in the tradition of Critical Sociology. The first is the emergence of class as a research concept that informs any understanding of how and why individuals find themselves in structural positions that constrain and mediate social outcomes. The second major contribution of critical sociology is how to understand economic development and the relationship between advanced industrial nations and the rest of the developing world. At the height of capitalism's transformative power and its ability to generate great wealth Karl Marx examined how this system worked, how it was different from what came before it, and where a society driven by capitalist social relations was heading. Critical Sociology first appeared in 1969 as The Insurgent Sociologist, published at first by the Western Union of Radical Sociologists that arose out of the intellectual struggles of the 1960s mentioned in the chapter.